ICM Chapter 91
Someone’s scream echoed through the corridor. Even as she was being dragged along by the knight’s grip, the woman’s gaze constantly surveyed her surroundings. She didn’t care that what she wore was barely more than a nightgown, or that she had been dragged out without even shoes on her feet.
Were there no escapees? Were there none who had been quick-witted enough to flee the castle and preserve their lives before things had reached this point?
However, throughout the corridors were only retainers who, like her, had been dragged out by knights’ hands, wearing bewildered expressions on their faces.
She couldn’t even attempt to resist as she was dragged into the banquet hall by the rough knight’s grip.
“Your Majesty, we have found the Grand Duchess.”
Your Majesty? Which Majesty did they speak of? Did they mean Ilerna, her younger sister who had visited the Grand Duke’s castle after a long absence and had become the nation’s dignified Empress? Or perhaps…
She was horrified to discover who turned to look at her from inside the banquet hall.
“Your Majesty the Emperor!”
“It’s been a long time, Ibis. My former fiancée.”
The man wearing a bitter smile was certainly a face she knew.
The Crown Prince who had been engaged to Ibis when she turned fifteen, but who had cast her aside at eighteen, just before their wedding, citing infertility as the reason. The man who had instead taken her younger sister as his wife and ascended to the imperial throne in just half a year. That had already been six years ago.
“I am innocent, I am innocent.” A voice that had lost its strength cried out pitifully. The owner of that voice was Grand Duke Arkpella, collapsed as if thrown before the Emperor.
“Father!”
As Ibis tried to rush forward, an imperial knight harshly grabbed her shoulder.
“Ah!”
“Let go! How dare you commit such an outrage in a place like this!”
Seeing his daughter being roughly handled, the Grand Duke sprang up from his position. In an instant, thud—the Emperor’s foot struck the Grand Duke’s chest.
“Ugh!”
“That’s the problem. ‘How dare’? You use the word ‘dare’ before the Empire’s Emperor?”
The weakened Grand Duke’s body collapsed helplessly under the vigorous young Emperor’s kick. Ibis clutched her breaking heart and shouted.
“My father is a sick man. Even street ruffians wouldn’t treat a patient so harshly!”
“Are you now arguing that the Empire’s Emperor is more vulgar than street ruffians?”
The Emperor’s eyes glinted coldly.
“The Empress confessed while suffering greatly. She said she could no longer overlook the evidence of treason that my father has been committing all this time, now that she has become the mother of the nation.”
Ibis’s eyes widened in shock. Why would her own sister, of all people, say such a terrible thing?
“Ilerna? Why…”
She couldn’t believe it. Her father was so weak in body that he often couldn’t even properly attend to state affairs. Yet treason?
“It’s a false accusation! How can you believe such words!”
“There is evidence.”
It was someone else who answered Ibis’s desperate cry. A man dressed in armor like the knights, but who was not a knight. A man who wore a sword but had never stained his blade with a single drop of blood stepped forward from beside the Emperor.
“Over several years, funds have flowed from the Grand Duke’s castle to foreign countries, and there is clear evidence that foreign soldiers were being brought in and trained at the border regions. Did Your Grace truly not know?”
At the monotonous explanation, Ibis was left speechless.
Why was that man here in this place? Deep golden hair and snake-like, chilling blue-green eyes. The gaze of the man looking down with a languid smile was disgustingly repulsive.
It had been that way from their first meeting. She remembered how he had looked at her with greedy eyes that seemed to strip her bare from head to toe.
“That can’t be…”
As Ibis was about to deny it, she saw the Emperor’s face wearing a bitter smile. And then the realization struck her like a blow to the head.
‘It’s a false accusation. They’ve created false evidence and witnesses to cause this incident.’
It was a false charge that the Emperor had deliberately pinned on them. No matter what they did, the Grand Duke’s family would not be able to escape.
‘But why?’
It had been the imperial family who had proposed a marriage alliance to restore their distant relationship.
“If you want to save even one of your bloodline, you’d better abandon vain ambitions. So then, Grand Duke.”
The Emperor extended his hand to a nearby knight and received a sword. He tapped the Grand Duke’s shoulder with the sharp blade.
“Where is the divine chamber?”
The Grand Duke, who had been sitting in despair, froze in that instant. His enlarged eyes, as if finally understanding something, looked up at the Emperor’s face. They were brilliant violet-blue eyes, unbelievable for those of a sick man.
“Didn’t you understand what I said? Guide me to the divine chamber. The secret that you Arkpellas have hidden away so carefully.”
The Grand Duke’s face contorted. It was a bizarre laugh that seemed both mocking and filled with ecstasy.
“Ha, haha. You couldn’t escape it either. Yes, that’s why. That’s why you caused this incident.”
“Grand Duke, have you lost your mind!”
The Imperial Knight Commander shouted angrily and stepped forward. However, the Grand Duke burst into even louder laughter. He laughed until his shoulders shook.
“How can one escape a curse passed down through generations? Curse upon curse will be added. You will never escape the curse and will die in agony… Ugh!”
“Father!”
The Emperor’s angry kick flew once more. Blood spurted from the Grand Duke’s face. The Emperor gripped his sword properly and gestured to the knights.
“Drag her over.”
Ibis was dragged by the knights’ hands and thrown before the Emperor. The Emperor glared at the Grand Duke with savage eyes.
“Tell me where the divine chamber is. Awaken the god you’ve hidden. Otherwise, the Arkpella bloodline will be extinguished by my hand.”
“Just how did your father teach you? Don’t you understand yet?”
“I don’t need to know the method. Since the Grand Duke guards the Grand Duke’s castle, you just need to open it.”
“It cannot be opened, you foolish Emperor. You haven’t properly understood the words of legend.”
At the Grand Duke’s mockery, the Emperor’s face twisted with rage.
“Even so, you people are now nothing but traitors. So beg me for mercy!”
“Ahhh!”
The Emperor’s sword mercilessly pierced through Ibis’s shoulder.
“No! Don’t!”
As the Grand Duke tried to rush to Ibis, the knights roughly grabbed and pressed down his shoulders.
“That’s why I told you to open it.”
“Cursed Contilia! That disease will never be diluted. It will never stop until your blood withers and disappears from this land!”
It was a cry close to a scream. Fire flashed in the Emperor’s eyes as his enraged sword flew toward Ibis again.
“Your Majesty!”
The man who had kept his gaze on Ibis throughout was horrified.
However, the sword did not reach Ibis. The Grand Duke used all his dying strength to push away the knights who had been holding him. The sword flying toward Ibis pierced through the Grand Duke’s chest as he blocked its path.
“Father!”
The surprised expression that crossed the Emperor’s face was only momentary. He twisted the sword in his grip and drove it deeper.
The Grand Duke grasped the sword that had pierced his chest with both hands. From his face contorted with pain, his trembling lips parted.
“…With the blessing… that God bestowed… lock the door… and to the one God looked upon with favor… give the key… give the key.”
Words that had been deleted from the founding myth flowed out. Cough—his lips, spitting blood, struggled to continue speaking.
“Kuhk… There’s a secret… that Contilia didn’t receive their share of… That is…”
Even as his body slid to the floor, the Grand Duke’s gaze never left the Emperor. His lips, trembling with blood, whispered softly.
“…….”
A faint whisper as his breath grew shallow. Grand Duke Arkpella laughed as he spoke in an inaudible language. Heh, heh—a bizarre sob flowed out like his last breath. The light went out in his violet-blue eyes and the Grand Duke’s thin body tilted downward.
“This crazy…”
The Emperor, who had been frozen for a moment, pulled out his sword. Thud—the Grand Duke’s body slid to the floor and blood poured out abundantly. Ibis’s body was also soaked with her father’s blood.
“Huh, ugh…”
While she was frozen in shock, unable to even shed tears, a low rumbling vibration swept across the floor.
“What…”
Disaster approached silently. Without any violent signs, the people gathered in the hall screamed.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Guhk.”
Even that was only for a very brief moment. The disaster that even swallowed sound swept through the banquet hall.
A bizarre sight formed on Ibis’s retina. People’s forms were crushed alive. Their surprised wide-open eyes and parted lips couldn’t even scream as they dried up like completely burned kindling.
Black soot rose and scattered like smoke. The people in the hall were instantly incinerated as if burned by fire. Not leaving behind a single piece of clothing or jewelry they wore, only dark brown lumps remained where they had burned.
It was a grotesque sight. Bodies twisted in pain, arms stretched into the air, lips parted to scream. Both the invaders who had used judgment as a pretext and the nobles who had been forcibly dragged there all became one mass, painting a hellish scene.
There were survivors in the midst of that terrible disaster.
In the Grand Duke’s castle, silent as death. In that place where everyone was thought to have been incinerated, there was someone moving.
The Emperor. The Emperor was alive.
Ibis pulled her frozen limbs and raised her body.
The Emperor was not the only survivor. Even the man who had looked at her with greedy eyes. Only those of cursed blood had survived the disaster in that hellish scene.
She had to escape before they awakened.
This was the one chance given to her. Ibis ran. When she left the banquet hall and entered the corridor, she saw the corpse of the soldier who had been guarding the entrance, dried up.
As she stepped back in surprise, something collided with her body and crumbled with a crack.
“Huh.”
A form that had once been human crumbled like completely burned ash, unable to withstand the impact.
“Ugh.”
Nausea rose. She was so terrified that she couldn’t even scream.
Faint moonlight pooled over the corpses that had hardened into grotesque shapes. The crescent moon visible outside the window followed behind her like a gaze watching the disaster.
Ibis ran down the dark corridor. Only the instinct to escape remained as she frantically moved her feet. The dried corpses constantly crumbled as they collided with her urgent steps.
Not knowing where or how she had passed, her memories were cut into fragments. When she came to her senses, she was running through some unknown forest. In the green dawn, the cold moonlight receded and day was breaking.
“Ahhh!”
Her leg caught on something and gave way helplessly. Splash—her body slid into a cold puddle.
“Hah, hah.”
Rapid breathing made her whole body heave. She barely managed to lift her head, but had no strength left to raise her body. In her mind, bleached white, no thoughts came at all.
The brightening sunlight illuminated above her head and settled over the clear puddle. The face of the woman within didn’t look like that of a living person.
Her heart sank.
Was this her face? Certainly she had seen it somewhere before, but there was a woman with completely different colors from her memory.
A pallid lead-colored face and disheveled, ruined pure white hair. Brilliant violet-blue eyes that didn’t feel like her own glared at her from the water’s surface.
“No, that can’t be…”
It’s a dream. It must be a nightmare.
A strong denial that what she had seen couldn’t be reality. However, she couldn’t deny even her own ruined appearance.
While she sat in despair at the terrible reality, the forest shook and a human shadow emerged like an apparition. Even the approaching man’s form felt dazed.
“Ibis.”
The other person breathlessly and desperately spoke her name. The appearance of the young man, dripping with sweat and showing relief, was familiar.
Deep brown hair and gentle-seeming black eyes, a face that still retained traces of youth. Only then did Ibis remember the other person’s name.
“…Prince Igraine.”
At her dazed call, the young man’s face crumpled as if he might cry.
It was the beginning of a long, long connection.
****
Light flickered before her eyes. Even in the suffocatingly dark space, the light imprinted on her retina did not easily fade.
“…Igraine…”
With each rapid breath, acrid dust flew in. It was so repulsively disagreeable that she covered her face with her hands.
“Lady Igraine!”
“Ahhh!”
Before her vision cleared, her startled body fell backward. The hand that had tried to catch her stopped in mid-air in confusion, and frightened jet-black eyes swayed as they looked around.
“No, why am I here!”
She had clearly escaped, yet she was back in the middle of the banquet hall where disaster had struck. Moreover, rumbling vibrations continuously shook the floor.
“Lady Igraine, get hold of yourself.”
Lady Igraine. That clear title flew into her mind.
Ashika unconsciously felt her own face. The face she had seen at the lake had certainly belonged to someone else, so she was confused. Different colored hair, different colored eyes, but certainly the face of someone she knew.
‘Iben…?’
An appearance that wasn’t her own, and memories that weren’t her own. Why had Iben been there? What on earth had happened?
“Time is urgent, Lady Igraine.”
The voice urging her again was harsh to the ear but not threatening. Ashika’s gaze turned to the elderly knight casting a large shadow.
Hair that had turned completely white and blue eyes, a face deeply wrinkled but with firm features that seemed familiar from somewhere.
“Who…”
“My grandson is red-eyed looking for you. Lady Igraine, there’s no time.”
Grandson? Whose?
Her slowly blinking black eyes confirmed the other person’s face and regained life. She thought of a man much younger than the person before her, but who looked exactly like him.
“Drushia…”
Even in her dazed state, a beloved face came to mind. The memories that weren’t her own, tangled up in her head, the vivid reality before her eyes, and the face of the man desperately searching for her.
“Yes, I don’t want to see that fellow die of worry. So Lady Igraine, can you stand up by yourself?”
Despite his large build and carrying a fearsome sword, Neoren’s manner of speaking was polite. However, there was no time for pleasantries. The sharp metallic sound and vibrations that shook her body awakened the half-dazed Ashika.